Sunless

Oceanwake is one of those bands from the relatively recent Finnish post-metal scene. Some of the other groups from the scene have gained more recognition, namely Ghost Brigade and Callisto, but for whatever reason Oceanwake remains more unknown. They fall in with the general sound of the genre, their level of deviation enough to distinguish themselves from their contemporaries but not really enough to begin the next wave of post-whatever. Post-post-metal.

Like much of post-metal, much of Oceanwake’s sound is rooted in sludge metal, though they push towards a more general doom approach, with death metal vocals. The clean parts play a large role in diversifying the album enough as to where it isn’t a plain post-metal or death-doom release. It could easily be boring if it was but we get multiple styles in one, holding the attention better as it changes.

The band does a decent job of combining styles, though it’s not their strongest point. Often the softer, clean post-rock guitars weave in and out of the doom backing, alternating with the heavy parts. Fifteen-minute opener Lay of a Coming Storm bases its dynamic structure around massive, bold doom metal switching off with melodic parts. Compared to other songs where the disparate elements are layered over one another or they build up into each other, this song seems a bit forced because the trading off is so frequent. During the long soft breaks, the song tends to lose some of its momentum.

Sunless contains a lot of meandering around with a general trend towards buildup. Rarely is there a satisfying peak, or when it does peak, it’s usually hastily thrown together as if the band is saying “wait, we really shouldn’t have written this eight-minute song that doesn’t lead up to anything. Oh, right, we can always add two minutes on the end that will make it seem like we planned an ending all along.” Ephemeral is the exception here; they give a dramatic, thought-out finale to close out the album where the song sounds as though it has been building up to this since early on.

Oceanwake’s sophomore release has that typical post-metal feeling but the melding of two disparate but often fused styles (by keeping them somewhat separate) keeps things interesting. This band has a sound with a lot of potential even if their songwriting hasn’t quite peaked yet. Good album, worth checking out for anyone searching for newer post-metal.